We hear a lot these days in MR circles about research transitioning from “questioning” to “listening” to “observing.” Although we will always need to ask consumers questions, the trend toward “passive research” is fairly obvious. But, what about gaming? Could gaming enter into the MR toolbox in a serious way? I think so. Gaming has [...]

Perhaps the most interesting thing within the insights industry that I have read in the past few months was John Wittenbraker’s piece in the August edition of Quirk’s. Wittenbraker details a recent ARF survey that had MR industry professionals rate various tools as either (a) fading fast, (b) trendy, (c) timeless or (d) cutting edge. [...]

Now that I have submitted my first draft for the book Leading Edge Marketing Research, I’ll have more time once again to write here at Future of Insight. I think readers of Future of Insight will very much enjoy the book and my chapter within it. For a look at the chapters and authors, click [...]

The Honomichl 50 Rankings are out as of late last week. AMA members can read the full report here. GreenBook has some good topline coverage here. Key points: 1. 2009 US revenue for the top 50 fell 3.5%, with Harris Interactive dropping 24% and Gfk (-11.7%), Synovate (-12.4%) and Ipsos (-7.3%) all struggling through this [...]

In my analysis of plausible market research futures, one that I come back to frequently is what I call the “epidemiology future.” By this I mean the application of memetics to marketing campaigns utilizing research and testing techniques. Memetics is the application of the viral analogy to the world of ideas. The idea is the [...]

Here at Future of Insight we’ve been spending a lot of time recently discussing the evolutionary stages of market research. For a complementary perspective, I recommend watching the following interview with Simon Chadwick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6clSVeVhU_c Our views are very similar. While much of the industry as it is currently defined is still in the “Asking Epoch” [...]

Over at NGMR there is an excellent discussion regarding the future of MR. With many points of view being promoted and it’s worth a quick read. For the record, here are my posts: Post 1: Today there is no one single future for market research, but alternative futures. I’ve written quite a bit about this [...]

Reading Joel Rubinson’s excellent post over at his ARF blog, recalls some futuring I’ve been doing around the likely evolution of the industry. Rubinson takes a look at the evolution of the ad agency and applies this evolutionary footpath to MR with media buying the analog to the data collection side of the business and [...]

Ci Research Manager Gareth Hodgson shares his very funny take on the future of market research: The future of market research is… Street interviewers with jet packs. Either that or a closer alignment to (and integration with) increasingly sophisticated and knowledge-rich customer databases. Although street interviewers with jet packs is a fantastic “atomic ranch” image, [...]

For those interested in the trandsformation of market research, I strongly recommend Joel Rubinson’s post regarding Research Transformation. Here Rubinson details the “ARF’s first Research Transformation super-council meeting.” MR has a long road ahead of it in order to transform. As I’ve noted before, the BCG research on this paints a stark picture. Like Kim [...]